


Mirror, Mirror: Respite

by BlackQat



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 12:48:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13411599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackQat/pseuds/BlackQat
Summary: A moment between "Mirror" Lorca and "Mirror" Burnham. This mirror universe requires too much, but neither officer will surrender to it.





	Mirror, Mirror: Respite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyFangs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyFangs/gifts).



**Respite**

Lorca is battered, bloody, and shaking, trembling at his core. Burnham never imagined him this way. His bearing and demeanor had always suggested something similar to a Vulcan’s discipline. “Never let ‘em see you sweat,” as he said once, amid a crisis.

He stands – holds himself up, that is – by the Ready Room’s conference table. She invites him to sit; he does so gingerly. “Privacy lock,” she says, and the door seals shut, opaque to all outside.

He rests his head on the cushion at the top of the chair, wearier than she’s ever seen him. Something in Michael makes her want to cushion his head against her bosom, but she thinks that would undermine what’s holding him together. Pride, gristle, those are all he has left at this point.

And that mind of his, ever calculating, finding ways to navigate the complex shoals of this insane universe.

She settles into a crouch beside him, rests a hand on his, limp against his thigh. She is delicate about it – who knows how many bodily systems could be impacted by the Agony Booth? He moves so his eyes meet hers, only a spark of his usual steel remaining in them. She envelops him in her own, soft gaze, a thing she learned to do with her new human mother, Amanda, back on Vulcan. It let Amanda know Michael loved and appreciated her, without breaking Vulcan discipline.

She realizes in this moment she does love Lorca. That he is sacrificing so much for this mission. That his determination conquers the sufferings of his body. She admires him, but there is an undercurrent of more running through her nerves, making her heart and head pulse with it.

“Oh God, that feels so good,” he says in a Southern drawl she has only briefly heard before. “Just the touch of a warm, human hand.”

“I will do everything in my power—”

He smiles wearily at her. “Of course you will. I know you will. I trust you more than anybody.” There’s a gravelly rasp in his voice and his eyes are bright. He swallows. “The way you look at me, Michael. I think you know me better than anyone.”

She would not be able to explain herself, but she lays her head softly on his other thigh. He buries his hand in her hair. “So soft,” he says. “How I’ve wanted to feel something other than that pain. Klingon torture has nothin’ on this.”

You need kindness and warmth, she thinks. Some semblance of human decency. “It’s the least I can do, Captain.” She rises then, and reaches for him, and indeed, guides his head to rest against her, leaning her head down to kiss his forehead. “Gabriel.”

He sighs, and drapes an arm around her waist. “Oh, my dear. Thank you.”

She can tell he is falling into exhausted sleep, and gently parts from him, guiding his arm and head to the table so he might rest. She cannot offer him her bed, though she wants to.

Michael rests her hand at the back of his head, moves away to her desk, and calls up a file of sounds from the Agony Booth. Modulating them to a volume that will sound like it’s carrying through the Ready Room door, she puts the screams on a concealed speaker outside on the Bridge.

Gabriel’s back rises and falls with deep, deep breaths, in the sleep that, temporarily at least, “knits up the ravelled sleave of care.”


End file.
